.eu is the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for the European Union and
was launched in 2005. It is administered by EURid
- a consortium consisting of the local ccTLD
registry operators of Belgium, Czech Republic, Sweden and Italy. EU is
not a country but there are precedents for issuing top level domains to other
entities (e.g. nata)
On February 7 , 2006 , the registry was opened for company, trade and personal
names. In the first 15 minutes, there were 27,949 total applications, and after
one hour, 71,235.
On April 7 , 2006 at 11 am CET registration became possible for non-trademark
holders. Most people requesting domains had asked their registrars to put their
requested domains in a queue, ensuring the best chance to register a domain.
This way more than 700,000 domains were registered during the first 4 hours
of operation. By August 2006 , 2 Million .eu domains had been registered. It
is now the third largest domain in Europe, after .de and .uk , and is the seventh
largest internationally.
The main users of .eu domains are websites with pan-European or cross-border
intentions and audiences. It is often used to emphasise the 'European identity'
of a website, as opposed to the website having a strictly national ccTLD or
global "dotcom" nature.
Over one year after the launch of .eu ( 05 July 2007 ), the number of .de domains
registered was 11,079,557 according to the German .de registry's statistics
page , while number of German owned .eu domains according to EURid's
statistics page was 796,561. The number of .uk domains registered was 6,038,732
according to .uk
registry Nominet's statistics page . The number of apparently UK owned .eu
domains was 344,584.
- Many domain registrants use their .eu website as a web portal containing
a list of national their websites with national ccTLDs .
- Other registrants have registered a .eu domain name to protect the brand
name of their main website or domain, and redirect visitors to their pre-existing
national ccTLD or .com website.
- Many of .eu websites are simply parking pages with Pay Per Click advertisements.
ISPs and web hosters will often point unused domains to a parking webpage
with PPC advertising.
- Many apparently active .eu websites are really aliases for existing the national ccTLD or .com websites.
- Domain name speculation , Domain name warehousing and cybersquatting are
always features of the launch of any new TLD, however this was more widespread
in the case of the .eu launch, as seen below.
According to page 20 of EURid 's Annual Report for 2006 , the breakdown of
.eu domain ownership figures on December 31st, 2006 was:
- Registrants with more than 10,000 domains: 6
- Registrants with 5,000-9,999 domains: 18
- Registrants with 1,000-4,999 domains: 64
- Registrants with 100-999 domains: 1,257
- Registrants with 10-99 domains: 20,886
- Registrants with 6-9 domains: 22,933
- Registrants with 5 domains: 13,200 - (66,000 domains)
- Registrants with 4 domains: 23,007 - (92,028 domains)
- Registrants with 3 domains: 42,887 - (128,661 domains)
- Registrants with 2 domains: 115,543 - (231,086 domains)
- Registrants with 1 domain: 610,679
The number of .eu domain registrations during the year after the landrush April
7 , 2006 to April 6 , 2007 seems to have peaked at approximately 2.6 million
.eu domains. The market adjustment that follows a landrush in any domain name
extension ensures that the number of registered domains will fall as many speculative
domain registrations that failed to be resold will not be renewed. This is sometimes
referred to as the Junk Dump . On the morning of April 7 , 2007 , the
number of active .eu domains stood at 2,590,160 with approximately 15,000 domains
having been deleted since April 5th 2007 .
Approximately 1.5 million .eu domains were up for renewal in April 2007 . The
EURid registry software is based on the DNS.be software and domains are physically
renewed at the end of the month of their anniversary of registration. This process
differs from more sophisticated registries like that of .com TLD and other ccTLDs
that operate on a daily basis. As with any post-landrush phase, an extension
shrinks as the Junk Dump takes effect.
The extent of the shrinkage of .eu ccTLD is difficult to estimate because EURid
does not publish detailed statistics on the number of new domains registered
each day. Instead it provides only a single figure for the number of active
domains. The number of new registrations are combined with numbers of domains
registered. Approximately 250,000 .eu domains were either deleted or moved into
quarantine by April 30 .
Find Available EU Domain Names
• Nearly available EU Domain
Names • Deleting EU Domain Names
